Balinese names

[Donald Stilo]

When I was in Bali in 2005 (after ALT), I made friends with a Balinese man named Wayan and his daughter's name was Wayan.  There was no additional particle prefixed to their names to show the gender -- the written language, of course, may have those prefixes. I met a LOT of other Wayans (both genders), too.  I was also told that the 5th, 6th child is offically called "Wayan Again, Made Again, etc."  Since I am the 4th child in my family, they called me Ketut Don.

Don



On Jul 23, 2012, at 9:36 PM, Siva Kalyan wrote:

> I believe Balinese names are still marked for gender, with male names starting with “I” and female names with “Ni” (e.g. “I Wayan” etc.).
> 
> Siva
> 
> -- 
> Siva Kalyan
> Sent with Sparrow
> 
> On Monday, 23 July 2012 at 6:26 AM, Eva Lindström wrote:
> 
>> Hi all, I think in Bali (Indonesia), names are simply given by birth
>> order, regardless of the sex of the child: Wayan, Made, Nyoman, Ketut
>> -- if there are more children it circles back to Wayan, etc.
>> 
>> Eva
>> 
>> On 23 July 2012 10:53, Ulrike Zeshan <UZeshan at uclan.ac.uk> wrote:
>>> Hi, most “sign names” in most sign languages are of this type, i.e. the name
>>> itself gives no clue as to whether the person is male or female. This is
>>> because sign names are based on the perceived salient characteristics of a
>>> person, mostly what they look like (e.g. “the one with a mole on the cheek”,
>>> “the one wearing glasses”), or sometimes a behaviour or other
>>> characteristic, sometimes in combination with a letter from fingerspelling
>>> (e.g. “the R-named person who is very clever”). Of course you can sometimes
>>> deduce that the person is male or female depending on the local culture,
>>> e.g. “the one with the long braided hair” in many cultures will with some
>>> certainty be a female.
>>> 
>>> The only systematic exception is in the Japanese Sign Language family, e.g.
>>> in South Korean Sign Language, sign names with male reference have an
>>> extended thumb, and sign names with female reference have an extended little
>>> finger (this corresponds to the wider gender marking system). However, this
>>> is a rare and unusual type of system for sign languages to have.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Ulrike
> 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lingtyp/attachments/20120723/0e4a8666/attachment.htm>